Mumbai: 19 yrs after leaving home in a huff, 70-yr-old reunited with kin

Bateshwar and Pushpa Jaiswal at the Cuffe Parade police station on Monday

A 70-year-old Cuffe Parade resident, Bateshwar Pannalal Jaiswal, was on Monday reunited with his wife and three sons 19 years after he went missing from Ambedkar Nagar in the tony area.

A missing person complaint was registered with the Cuffe Parade police station on June 21, 2003, after Jaiswal was nowhere to be found. A search was subsequently carried out, but the police failed to locate him as they lacked clues and useful CCTV footage.

But Jaiswal's wife, Pushpa, never gave up. In 2015, she collected a certificate from the police, which stated Jaiswal was still missing.

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According to officials, on November 7, Pushpa received a call from an unknown number from someone who claimed, in Marathi, to be her husband but was unable to find her. "She immediately informed the local police, and a search was launched based on technical details," said Dilip Sawant, additional commissioner, south region.

The police eventually traced the call to Mohit Hospital at Borivli East, and a team led by ASI Arvind Sawant and constable Prakash Bari reached the location. "It was very difficult for us to pinpoint a single individual as we had nothing apart from an old photograph to go by," ASI Sawant said.

The police then took multiple photographs of the location and people at the spot. They also photographed security guards at the hospital and forwarded them to the family. "The family was able to zero down on a person in security guard uniform, and after checking with him, we found that he is the very person we were looking for," ASI Sawant said.

The officials then brought him to the police station, where the family was called to identify him. "Only his wife and older son were able to recognise him," the officer said.

It was learnt that Jaiswal left home after a scuffle with his wife over some domestic issues.

"He had been working as a guard for many years in Borivli and had some illness; it also appears that he tried to find his family but he couldn't. Recently, he got his wife's number from a Cuffe Parade local whom he saw in Borivli and that's how he got in touch with her," ASI Sawant said.

According to the police, Jaiswal had a shop in Cuffe Parade, and his family suffered a lot after he went missing. His youngest son was 20 when he left home. The police have counselled Jaiswal and have also called a psychologist to check on him.

21
The day in June 2003 when missing person complaint was filed